In summer 2001, philanthropist-producer Steve Bing and music producer Jimmy Rip got Sun Records rock and roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis out of his pajamas and back into the studio in Memphis, where he began sessions for this album of 21 Killer-styled duets performed with longtime friends and rock and roll acolytes.

As the work was in progress – with an all-A-list lineup of backing players at Phillips Recording Studio, run by original Sun founder/producer Sam Phillips, and at modern-day Sun Studios and other facilities (or even hotel rooms) as the logistics (and certain Stones) necessitated – pioneering Sun rockabilly king Johnny Cash died. Then Phillips checked out, too.

Original and long-time Jerry Lee fans who’d heard about these ongoing sessions – rock and roll Lewis’ first new, released studio album in a decade – wondered if he would live to see this thing released. He made it. Lord, have mercy.

It’s ironic, of course, that of the original Sun rockabilly cats and founding fathers of rock and roll circa 1954-1957 – Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Cash and Lewis – the sole survivor turned out to be Jerry Lee.

From the start, everybody thought Lewis, nicknamed “the Killer,” the wild, young self-described “mother-humper,” would live hard, die fast, and leave a good-lookin’ corpse.

Well, that didn’t happen, any more than it did with Keith Richards, a second-generation rocker who fooled everyone by surviving his excesses well into his 60s.

With much media fanfare, Jerry Lee’s Last Man Standing album finally dropped Oct. 3, 2006, a week after Ferriday, Louisiana’s favorite son celebrated his 71st birthday. Since Oct. 3 was also my 55th, and the Killer is the man I bless and blame for hooking me on rock and roll at the tender age of 6, I rushed out and bought it as a present from one die-hard rock and roll birthday boy to another.

In the car on the way home, I took a sneak pre-review listen to the opening track, a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” featuring co-author Jimmy Page shredding on lead guitar, but completely restyled a la the Killer. He starts pre-take saying, “What I need’s some rock ‘n’ roll!” His vocal is drenched in echo, his piano-pounding over-the-top, and his “Rock and ROOOOOLLLLL!” whoops and piano glissandos masterfully placed, especially in the middle of Page’s solo.

“Been a long time since I rocked and rolled…/Let me get you back, let me get you back – to Louisiana,” Lewis yowls, personalizing the lyrics with an homage to the place he came from, and where he started playing piano Killer-style – at age 6.

Suddenly I’m feeling about 50 years younger, out of control, whooping
and pounding on the dashboard so hard my wife thought the airbags were
gonna blow. Fortunately, she was driving.

It does carry me back, to Nov. 4, 1957, when I was 6 and saw Jerry Lee
perform “Great Balls of Fire” on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand,”
which had premiered on the upstart ABC television network earlier that
year. It was Jerry Lee’s third Sun single but the first I’d heard.

I was watching “Bandstand” next door, where a friend of my mother’s
lived and looked after my younger sister and me after school and on
weekends while our mom was at work, and our father was working out of
the state.

When I saw Jerry Lee toss his too-long blond hair (looking like a
young, handsome, blond, hopped-up Shemp from the Three Stooges) while
pounding out that visceral rhythm, and then kicking over his piano
stool, I flipped, jumping all over the couch like a kid hopped up on
sugar and caffeine.

Our neighbor rushed into the room to see what the fuss was about,
caught me in mid-leap, saw and heard what Jerry Lee was doing and the
nasty stuff he was singing about, and immediately turned off the tube.

“That’s the devil’s music!” she said. “You go sit in that chair until your mother comes to pick you up!”

Fuming, I sat, wondering WTF I had done wrong. I was just 6, having
fun. Later, I told my mother what the mean lady had done. Mom was a
rebel – a blessing and a curse as role model for me. She marched us to
the local department store and bought me "Great Balls of Fire." It was
my first rock and roll single, and I must have played it 300 times in a
row on our portable record player. Screw you, babysitter.

Then, a month or so later, on Dec. 12, 1957, Jerry Lee married his
13-year-old cousin, Myra Gale Brown, before the divorce from his second
wife was finalized, which became a career-derailing scandal in summer
1958 when the British and U.S. press got wind of it. After that, even
my mother banned “Great Balls of Fire” from the house.

So began my long and winding road trip down the rock and roll highway
to hell. I could have been a doctor, lawyer, banker, but no – I wanted
to grow up to be a rock and roll rebel and musician like Jerry Lee,
because it looked so cool and felt so good to cut loose. It didn’t
quite turn out that way, for better or worse. I started playing drums
at age 12, moved to L.A. at 16, but wound up taking a cue from my
journalist parents and theirs before them, and went for the media side
of the biz instead.

On my first assignment to Nashville, to cover the October 1975 Country
Music Association awards for a Hollywood-based music trade magazine,
Jerry Lee played a private gig one night at the old Ryman Auditorium.
The first home of the Grand Ole Opry was closed to the public by then,
but not yet renovated.

Standing in the wings on that storied stage, I witnessed the Killer
rockin’ the house while the pickup band, fronted by guitarist and
sometime fiddle-player Kenny Lovelace, did its best to keep up. It was
a pinch-me moment; still unforgettable. After the show, I joined a
small party of industry-types on the Killer’s tour bus parked out back
for a meet-and-greet, which lasted about three minutes before he threw
everyone off. Fantastic. If he’d been all cordial and nice, I would
have been severely disappointed.

Today, after a well-documented life of triumph and tragedy, the
71-year-old Jerry Lee Lewis is rejuvenated. He reminds us that when you
reach a certain age, you realize there is no back. There is only now.
Every nanosecond should count for something in the now.

When “Rock and Roll” came to its bluesy conclusion, replete with his
echo-saturated reference to “missin’ that dad-gummed good Louisiana
lovin’,” I hit the eject button and popped the CD out of the player,
just to savor the idyllic, virginal purity of this exhilarating
first-time listening experience. Even if the next 20 tracks totally
sucked, I told my wife, that opening track was worth the price, period,
case closed. “Yeah, how the hell could he follow that?” she asked.

Fortunately, I later re-opened the case. Venturing past the opener, I
thought the rest of the album’s tracks stood up nearly as well, though
there were a few wobbly spots. But it’s all classic Jerry Lee, his
singing and playing sounding younger and stronger than his years. Last
Man Standing ranks up there with Jerry Lee essentials including The
Original Sun Sessions, his 1965 Star Club set (backed by the Nashville
Teens), the early-‘70s London Sessions, and the mid-‘90s All Killer No
Filler two-CD anthology.

On Last Man Standing, you get pure as well as finely blended country,
blues, boogie-woogie and gospel along with your full-strength rock and
roll.

You get plenty of Jerry Lee’s self-referencing sexual bravado, along
with a fair amount of conflicting guilt and regret. You get the
perspective of a young man full of himself, but now also the view of an
old man who’s still full of himself and not yet ready to roll over.

With his production team’s deft, usually transparent assistance, Jerry
Lee runs each song and performance through his own mojo filter so it
sounds like he created it. That’s been the Killer’s M.O. since he began
playing.

Adding to the fun is the pre- and post-take studio chatter between Jerry Lee and some of his superstar fans.

Following “Rock and Roll,” octogenarian and fellow Sun alumnus B.B.
King brings in his guitar Lucille to spread some tasty licks on a
soulful country-blues version of “Before the Night is Over,” a Ben
Peters song Jerry Lee first recorded some three decades ago for
Mercury. Also on guitars are Rip and Lovelace, still the Killer’s
axemen after all these years. Lovelace, Rip, drummer Jim Keltner and
bassist Hutch Hutchinson form the rhythm section that recorded most of
the basic tracks.

Cut at Phillips as well as Sun Studios in Memphis, Bruce Springsteen’s
“Pink Cadillac” is a perfect choice for the Killer and the Boss. It
revs up when Bruce calls out, “C’mon, now, Killer!” then burns rubber
from there, with Dave Woodruff wailing Big Man-esque tenor sax solo,
and Jerry Lee throwing out an Orbison-esque “Grrrrrr!” and “Yeah, Baby,
put the seat down – Ol’ Killer knows your tricks!” on the fade.

Mick Jagger’s original “Evening Gown” was the first track cut for Last
Man Standing in 2001; it’s rough and gloriously sloppy. Jagger trades
vocal lines, sings harmony and call-and-responses with Jerry while
Ronnie Wood contributes a taste of pedal steel. “I can still paint the
town/With all the colors of your evening gown/While we’re waiting for
all your blonde hair to turn gray,” they sing. The girl with faraway
eyes is now a grandma.

A grizzled Neil Young joins Jerry Lee on vocals and the guitar solo for
“You Don’t Have to Go,” a bluesy, strolling shuffle by James Matcher
Reed which the Loner and the Killer also performed on “Late Show with
David Letterman” the night after the album’s release. “Jerry Lee Lewis
backin’ up, darlin’, and down the mother-humpin’ road I go! – I got
your number, baby!” he says at the end.

Robbie Robertson of the Band and solo renown contributes the original
slow, gospel-tinged “Twilight” and plays lead guitar on the track.
Jerry Lee sinks his teeth into this one about a lifetime of memories:
“Don’t leave me alone in the twilight/’Cause twilight’s the loneliest
time of day – yes, it is,” he testifies.

Picking up the tempo again, Jerry Lee tells John C. Fogerty to “Kick it
off, Killer!” and Fogerty jumps on it, conjuring up the Sun fire and
brimstone with Jerry Lee on “Traveling Band,” one of Fogerty’s best
Creedence Clearwater Revival barn-burners.

The other aforementioned Man Still Standing, Keith Richards adds rhythm
and lead guitar and fair backing vocals to Lewis’ version of Mack
Vickery’s “That Kind of Fool,” another country blues, this time
featuring Greg Lieze on pedal steel. “Look at that fool who goes home
to his wife,” the boozy bounders intone. “Wished Jerry Lee could have
been that kind of fool.” More shades of the Stones’ “Faraway Eyes.” As
the last notes ring out, Richards says cheerfully, “Got the feelin,’
Jerry!” Lewis agrees: “Killer, I think we got it.”

The scene shifts to the Record Plant in Los Angeles for Jerry Lee’s
vocal duet with former Beatle and still-standing solo artist Ringo
Starr. With guests including Keith Allison (guitar), Nils Lofgren
(steel guitar) and Ivan Neville (organ), with Keltner playing drums,
they turn in a salacious take on “Sweet Little Sixteen” by Chuck Berry,
who is otherwise conspicuously absent from this enterprise. “Had to get
that last note in,” Jerry remarks at the end. “Your lungs are better
than mine!” says Ringo.

Country legend Merle Haggard – damn, aren’t all these guys survivors? –
drops in for a load of fun with his old pal Jerry Lee on “Just a
Bummin’ Around.” Jerry Lee asks what key it’s in, somebody says “F,”
and he piano-rolls right into the intro. These guys sound just like the
seen-it-all geezers they are, and free as the breeze, doin’ as they
please, they make no apologies.

One of the album’s more off-the-hook tracks teams the Killer with
Detroit bad boy Kid Rock on Jagger-Richards’ “Honky Tonk Woman.” It’s a
two-steppin’, cut-time take with James Stroud guesting on drums and a
trio of Rock-ettes – Stacy Michelle, Jewel Jones and Phyllis Duncan --
on backing vocals, and tagged with Jerry Lee’s excited “Man, that just
blew my MIND!”

The Rod Stewart duet on Jerry Lee’s 1968 country hit “What’s Made
Milwaukee Famous,” keeps it simple – just their voices and the Killer’s
barroom piano, as though they were cryin’ in their beer at the local
tavern, don’t-cha-know, even though Rod laid his vocal track down in
L.A. after Jerry Lee cut the basic track in Memphis.

Bob Wills’ “Don’t Be Ashamed of Your Age” matches Jerry Lee with George
Jones, another guy who’s beat the odds to death. This take has even
more homespun hilarity than the Haggard duet. “My big toe’s hurtin’,”
Jones complains as the tape rolls. “Wait till it gets down to your
little toes – then you can holler!” the Killer retorts. He takes the
first verse while George ad-libs a la Wills, then George sings and
Jerry throws out the responses.

Willie Nelson and Jerry Lee stray into the depression zone with a
dirge-like “Couple More Years,” a country waltz penned by Dennis
Locorriere of Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show and his writing partner
Shel Silverstein. Maybe it’s Mickey Raphael’s mournful harmonica. Or
that Willie seems disconnected – he cut his tracks at his Austin
studio. Let’s just say it’s a lot more fun on Willie’s bus.

From there, it’s into the America, Mom and apple pie zone as country
superstar Toby Keith joins the Killer for “Ol’ Glory,” which Jerry Lee
co-wrote with Shelby Darnell and Paul Robert. Greg Lieze on pedal steel
further countrifies the flag-waving session.

On “Trouble in Mind,” an eight-bar shuffle blues variously suicidal,
homicidal and hopeful, Eric Clapton adds some gritty rhythm and a nasty
solo, but no vocals at all. Slowhand overdubbed his parts at Olympic
Sound in London with Alan Douglas engineering. Jerry Lee takes the
first solo and his fingers float floridly up and down the keys. A verse
later, Eric takes a pair of eight-bar solos, and Jerry Lee takes it
out: “The sun’s gonna shine/On my back doorstep some low-down,
lonesome, mutha-humpin’ day.” Then: “Probably shouldn’t-a said that,
but it accidentally come out.”

Little Richard is the only other first-generation rock ‘n’ roll pioneer
on the album, and another influential piano-pounder at that, guesting
on Lennon-McCartney’s “I Saw Her Standing There,” Track 17 (cute).
Richard pokes his falsetto “wooo!” in the appropriate places and at the
end (if you didn’t know he taught Paul McCartney how to do that, in
person, London, 1962, Richard will tell you all about it), and adds a
bit of ragged harmony in the chorus, but plays no piano. This is the
Killer’s show; he completely dominates the performance.

“Hadacol Boogie,” the Bill Nettles jump-boogie classic inspired by the
notorious and eventually banned cough and cold remedy, features Buddy
Guy, just about the last man standing when it comes to blueprinting
electric Chicago blues as a kid at Chess.

Consider that a few years later, another kid named Jimmy Jones who
idolized Buddy went to his concerts and copped every guitar lick and
crowd-pleasing move in Guy’s bag of tricks. Hendrix choked and died 36
years ago, and has been a rock guitar godfather posthumously ever
since. Not to take anything away from Hendrix, but give credit where
it’s due.

Guy today is still a force, and widely revered among musicians as a
national treasure, just like Jerry Lee. They’re just as evenly matched
on the jacked-up “Hadacol” as the Killer was with Page, Springsteen and
Fogerty. Guy added his stuff at home in Chicago to a Memphis track laid
down by Jerry Lee, Rip, Keltner, BB Cunningham (bass) and Bill Strom
(organ), but as they throw out call-response vocals and trade and
complement their guitar and piano riffing, they sound more connected
than any of the album’s other long-distance duets.

“Why’d they call it ‘Hadacol’? They hadda call it something!” the Killer quips at the wrap.

Segueing to Van Morrison’s bluesy waltz-time “What Makes the Irish
Heart Beat” is less a stretch than it reads on paper. Country’s roots,
after all, extend back to Ireland, England and Scotland. Don Henley’s
harmonies are dead-on with Jerry Lee, and their line swapping later in
the song sounds better rehearsed than many of the albums tracks. Paddy
Maloney of the Chieftains on pipes and whistles joins Lovelace on
fiddle for a solo-section duet that’s just as dead-on.

Last Man Standing closes with Lewis easing back on piano and wrapping
his head around “The Pilgrim,” composed by Oxford scholar and one-time
raconteur Kris Kristoffersen. The author added his parts in a studio on
Maui to the basic track Jerry Lee and the band cut in Memphis, with
Greg Lieze again on steel. Kristoffersen could also have been
describing Lewis when he wrote these immortal lines: “He’s a poet he’s
a picker/He’s a prophet, he’s a liar/He’s a pilgrim and a preacher and
a problem when he’s stoned/He’s a walking contradiction/Partly truth
and partly fiction/Takin’ every wrong direction/On his lonely way back
home.”

These days, though, the Killer seems to have found the shrine the
Pilgrim never found. He’s content to spend most of his time at home on
his ranch in Mississippi, and, at least publicly, has cleaned up his
act in the past few years, with a little help from his watchful
daughter Phoebe, born to Myra and Jerry Lee in 1963. As Charles M.
Young reports in his Rolling Stone feature (Oct. 19, 2006), the
strongest thing the Killer drinks these days is grape soda.

The last thing you hear on the album, out in the clear when “The
Pilgrim” is over, is the Killer confirming, and personalizing, the
song’s central conclusion: “From the rocking of the cradle to the
rolling of the hearse, the going up was worth the coming down.”

Jerry Lee was referring to his entire 71 years, but that about says it for Last Man Standing, too.

Sound
The challenge here was keeping the sound quality consistent when tapes
and files were being sent all over the States and to London for
overdubs. Sonically, it’s nearly seamless. The giveaways are the
performances themselves. The producers used JVC’s K2 process to correct
anomalies that sometimes happen in digital music transfers. They also
cut the glass master in real time. This makes the CD’s sound quality as
close to the master tapes as you’re going to get with current
technology.